My mom was not a model of ethnic sensitivity. Once she made me cringe when a bunch of visiting rural Cajuns (led by a friend of mine) took us out to New York City’s Little Italy. We couldn’t find a spot, so I suggested parking in neighboring Chinatown. Mom took a stand on principle. Absolutely not. “Oh no,” she said, in her twangy, George-Costanza’s-mom Astoria accent. “I haven’t trusted those people since Pearl Harbor.” She’d been 14 when that happened, and her brother ended up getting wounded fighting at Normandy. Though not against … the Chinese. I stepped in, pedantically,...